Oscars 2011: Will the Brits win big in the technical categories?

The Oscars isn't just about the big stars: boasting a vast range of categories, it's also an opportunity for the craft of film-making to take the spotlight. Here, we speak to four acclaimed film technicians about the challenges of their work and what the ceremony means to them

Sandy Powell poses with her Oscar for best costume design for her work on the film The Aviator. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters Mike Blake/REUTERS

Clean sweeps at the Oscars always start with the early technical categories. If a hotly fancied film, such as The King's Speech, wins in editing, production design and music, then it's pretty likely the film's headed for a hefty haul, somewhere around the eight Oscars that went to Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.

Such domination by one film tends to be rather dull for the spectator, particularly if you don't like the film, or if you happen to be nominated in categories against that film. Oscar veterans can spot an on-rushing tide and have the rictus muscles trained for the moment the camera comes to them knowing they're about to lose.

The Oscars is the longest ceremony in awards season because of its large range of categories. Easy to dismiss as an exercise in self-promotion and vacuity, the global spotlight that's still thrust upon the Oscars at least ensures the craft of film-making gets recognised as does the sense of it as a wider industry.

The academy may have moved the science innovation awards (the "sci-techs") – and, more idiotically, the lifetime honorary awards – to separate ceremonies, but when else do we see editors, cinematographers, animators and sound designers step out from behind their machines? If you're one of them, you can bet the Oscars is considerably nicer than grabbing another Pot Noodle in your editing suite.

It is only in recent years, with the rise of the internet and the magpie-allure of any red carpet, that the separate guild awards have become publicly significant. The Writers Guild of America, the ASC cinematographer awards (Wally Pfister won for Inception this year, although Roger Deakins was awarded for lifetime achievement, so it's a close call tonight), the Screen Actors Guild etc all come together tonight under the academy's umbrella.

Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges, David Fincher, Harvey Weinstein – they're used to all this stuff (although never, of course, take it for granted). But despite multiple nominations for someone such as Roger Deakins, nominees in craft categories still like a big night out. Any sensible movie watcher will know that, auteur theories aside, films are a team game, particularly in Hollywood, with its vast departments for each area, and Oscar night is when, throughout the ceremony at least, that aspect is brought into focus.

The next day will always be about who said what at the podium or wore what on the red carpet. While you'll probably never find a fashion maven cooing over a cinematographer's outfit or a sound mixer's hairstyle, the real film fan will quietly appreciate the chance to applaud the backroom as it comes front and centre for one night of the year.

ROGER DEAKINS: 'The script for True Grit looked simple, but it was a real challenge to shoot'

Roger Deakins sets up a shot on the set of True Grit. Photograph: Wilson Webb

Long-time cinematographer for the Coen brothers who has been Oscar-nominated nine times for films including Fargo and No Country For Old Men

If Roger Deakins doesn't convert his ninth Oscar nomination into a much-deserved win tonight for his work on the Coen brothers' True Grit, he can take comfort in the fact that his services to cinematography haven't gone unnoticed. Earlier this month, the American Society of Cinematographers honoured the 61-year-old from Torquay with a lifetime achievement award, the highest accolade in the trade. "It's ridiculous," he laughs. "I'm only halfway through my career."

But you can see why they gave it to him. His CV – Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Revolutionary Road, No Country for Old Men – reads like a "best of" list of recent American cinema. True Grit is the 11th movie he's made with the Coens, a fruitful collaboration that began with Barton Fink in 1991. Before that, Deakins cut his teeth on documentaries and British films such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Sid and Nancy, but Hollywood is where he built his formidable reputation.

So if anyone can explain what a cinematographer does, exactly, it should be Roger Deakins. "Nobody seems to know," he laughs. When I press him he offers a modest definition. "Basically, the cinematographer runs the set when the director's not shooting – it's as simple as that. The director is in control when the camera's rolling, and in between, the cinematographer prepares for the next set-up."

There is, of course, more to it than that. Some cinematographers don't actually handle the camera when it's rolling, but Deakins says he always does. "I'm quite physically involved. I think that's more the exception than the rule, because I come from a documentary background."

Then there's the pre-production stage when the cinematographer works with the director to determine the look and style of the film and to plan scenes. The degree of spontaneity, he says, "varies a lot from film to film. With Joel and Ethan [Coen], everything is very tightly storyboarded before we shoot. With Sam Mendes [with whom Deakins worked on Jarhead and Revolutionary Road] we'd sometimes create it on the day, concentrating on the actors and shooting it hand-held. That's what's exciting about my job: every project requires a different approach."

Deakins calls True Grit "a deceptively simple-looking film". At first glance it seemed like a small story with only a few characters – 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) goes after the man who killed her father with the help of a drunken US marshal (Jeff Bridges) and a Texas ranger (Matt Damon) – "but the more I delved into the script, the more I realised it was a challenge".

The script contained two complicating factors: snow, which can play havoc with forward planning, and night scenes. "When you're in a city at night you can always find a light source, but when you're out in the middle of nowhere, and there's not meant to be a moon, it's quite tricky," says Deakins.

One of the biggest headaches involved a horse "galloping through the night across the open plain – and of course this horse happens to be jet-black. To get a camera close to a horse's head when it's galloping is hard enough, but to do it at night with a horse called Blackie..." He laughs. "It was a challenge, but I think we brought it off, to a degree."

Deakins clearly regards his collaboration with the Coens as a blessing, not least because it got his Hollywood career off the ground. Soon after Barton Fink, Deakins moved to Santa Monica with his wife Isabella, a script supervisor. "It was at a time when there wasn't that much happening in England. I took my chances and I've been very lucky" – a word he uses repeatedly to account for his success.

Would he like to do more British films? "Yes, and I might be back at the end of the year," he says. And might that be for the new James Bond film that Sam Mendes is directing? Deakins doesn't say no. "I think it'll be a great opportunity and something neither of us have done before."

He has just completed his first film using a digital camera – a thriller called Now, directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) – and is now a convert. He also has a sideline as a visual consultant for DreamWorks on animations such as How To Train Your Dragon – a job that requires a working knowledge of 3D.

Taking all this into consideration, isn't it time the academy put Deakins's name on one of those little gold statuettes? He refuses to speculate about tonight's result, but if his ninth attempt fails, "there's no way I can complain," he says. "I've been having a really good time out here. I've been really, really lucky." Killian Fox

STEPHENIE McMILLAN: 'To have a set that makes the actors comfortable, that's what I strive for'

Stephanie McMillan, film set decorator, photographed with props she used in the Harry Potter films. Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer

Oscar-winning set decorator of the The English Patient, nominated a third time for her work on the Harry Potter series

Helping to bring Harry Potter to the big screen has been set decorator Stephenie McMillan's job for almost a decade. You've probably been bewitched by her work without even realising it. That mug of butterbeer, those curtains, that dusty bookshelf: they've all been carefully chosen to create an atmosphere for the films.

Together with her creative partner, the production designer Stuart Craig, McMillan is up for an Oscar this year, her third nomination for work on JK Rowling's staggeringly popular series.

"People often say to me, 'Do you mind if it's dark and you don't see things on screen that you've dressed so beautifully?'" the elegant 68-year-old tells me as we sit in the offices of the Harry Potter graphics department, where framed copies of the Daily Prophet adorn the walls and shelves are stacked with tricks from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shop. "No, I don't mind. Because they were there. You feel them, even if you can't see them. To have a set that is right for the director and makes the actors feel comfortable, that's really what I strive for."

As a set decorator, McMillan is responsible for filling spaces, either on location or in studios, with carpets, curtains, furniture, pictures and props. Working in close collaboration with the production designer, director and actors, with constant reference to the script, she fleshes out the physical world of a scene and its characters.

Where viewers might see shiny patterns, McMillan sees ormolu mounts. To her, a horrible sofa is horrible for a precise reason – because it's covered in dralon fabric. Her encyclopedic knowledge of materials and the effects they create are the tools of her trade.

Take Dolores Umbridge. Inspired by the pink-clad Ministry of Magic villain who appears in Order of the Phoenix, the fifth Harry Potter book, McMillan filled her office in the film with French furniture, ornate but overstuffed sofas and lacy curtains. "Umbridge looks as if she should be quite soft, but underneath she's like an Exocet missile!" she laughs.

Imelda Staunton, who played the character, was happy with the set, but one alteration had to be made. "She is tiny!" McMillan exclaims. "Sitting in her office chair, her legs didn't touch the ground. They were swinging. So we gave her a little buttoned footstool underneath the desk."

In the sixth film, Jim Broadbent's character, Professor Slughorn, also has his own office – spacious, brown and leathery. "I really enjoyed him coming in and just standing there, looking round at each part, imagining each scene that was going to be shot there," says McMillan with a touch of pride.

Furnishings can be hired for the job, bought at auction or picked up at car boot sales. For Harry Potter, however, a lot of things had to be custom-made. But there was still the odd find – hideously shiny furniture from Watford for the Dursleys' house, a brown steamer trunk rescued from Kempton Park market, originally the property of an Austrian doctor, which became Professor Slughorn's potions kit.

McMillan and Stuart Craig have now worked on 16 films together. What's the secret of their success? "Stuart has such a bold vision," she explains. "He thinks about the big picture, and I fill in the details. We do have the same sort of taste. Our hero is the architect Sir John Soanes – we love his lines."McMillan is originally from Essex and her first job after college was as a secretary at the architect's firm Stillman and Eastwick-Field, based near Liverpool Street station in London, where she developed a sense of spatial awareness.

After having two daughters, who are now in their 40s, she began her career by helping a photographer friend find props for his images. She then moved into television commercials, where her work was spotted by a film producer.

By her own admission she sort of made it up as she went along, learning on the job. She has worked on films from A Fish Called Wanda to The English Patient (which won her an Oscar in 1997), but in recent years she has been immersed in the world of Harry Potter.

"I have been so lucky to have the opportunity to dress those brilliant and huge sets with enough time and money to do it properly, so I feel I don't really have any excuse for not getting it right," she says, when complimented on her Harry Potter work.

At the Oscars this year she will be without Craig, her fellow nominee. But, as well as her partner Phil Hardy, she will have another friend close by – a brown Amanda Wakeley dress. "This will be its third outing," she whispers, slightly ashamed. "But it's so easy, it looks good, it still fits me!" Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy

TARIQ ANWAR: 'Very few directors have vision. They just flounder until the editing room'

Tariq Anwar in his Soho editing suite. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

Bafta-winning editor of American Beauty, nominated for an Oscar for The King's Speech

Oscar-nominated film editor Tariq Anwar dreads the awards season a little. The King's Speech was nominated for editing at the Baftas, yet the prize went to The Social Network. Anwar wasn't too disappointed: "The good side of not winning is not going up there to make a speech. You have some things in mind, but you dread it."

He's not especially optimistic about winning an Oscar: "Subtle things don't tend to get rewarded – it's very much the things that are in your face." He speaks from experience: he was nominated in 2000 for American Beauty but lost out to the flashy Matrix. "You can get away with a lot with quick cutting, it disguises a lot of faults," he observes. He says timing the slow dialogue scenes in a film such as The King's Speech is often "much harder".

That said, Anwar didn't find working on The King's Speech especially challenging. "You're really fortunate when you have great material, the script is beautiful and the actors are so great." The main challenge was shortening the film without losing any story.

As is customary, Anwar assembled a cut of the film in his Soho edit suite while filming was still taking place. This original cut was nearly two and a half hours. Working with director Tom Hooper, he then brought the film down to a more audience-friendly length. Some of this work is done by reducing scenes "internally" but in some cases involves taking out whole sections. A scene showing King George V's dying moments was long debated. It pictured the King being given cocaine and morphine to hasten his death in order that the announcement could be made in the following morning's papers. "Derek Jacobi was out of this world in that scene," says Anwar. It was cut because "there was a concern it would be controversial and people would fixate on it."

Anwar thought the scene where the King and Queen visit Logue's home and his wife arrives home unexpectedly was "too farcical". He voted for it to be cut but he was overruled by Hooper. So it stayed – reuniting Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle on screen for the first time since Pride and Prejudice.

For Anwar the "fun part" is experimenting by transposing scenes. "It always surprises me how when you assemble a film how much you can manipulate it away from the script. It's extraordinary how you restructure a film and make it better, pacier and still keep story sense."Anwar was born in Lucknow, India, 65 years ago and arrived in the UK aged six. His big break in films came when Nicholas Hytner hired him to work on The Madness of King George in 1994. Previously he'd spent 18 years at the BBC working across all genres – drama, news, documentary. If you happen to tune into a very obscure satellite channel showing series such as Tom Baker-era Doctor Who or Bergerac, or the Chinese Detective you'll see Anwar's name on the credits. He remembers the days when editors wore suits, and white gloves in case they marked the film.

Anwar edited all of Sam Mendes's films up to and including Revolutionary Road, worked with Hytner on four films and spliced a couple for Richard Eyre. He prefers directors with a stage background: "They have a better narrative sense," he says, "and they get better performances from the actors. And they all take criticism, they welcome it."

Criticism doesn't always go down too well. Anwar has been fired three times. He explains that it's not unusual for editors to be sacked towards the end of a project. If test screenings go badly, the editor gets the push because at that stage only he and the director remain. Anwar says the editor's role is often misunderstood. "There is an assumption that whatever the audience sees on the screen is the way it was always meant to be," he says. The reality is often very different. "The internal cutting of scenes, the choosing of the takes, whether you want a wide shot or close-up… directors generally trust the editor to take those decisions themselves. Very few directors have real vision. They just flounder around and find their vision in the editing room."

It follows that Anwar thinks editors don't get enough recognition. "I've always thought directors are reluctant to praise the editor because they think it reflects on them. If the director says 'he did a fantastic job', people would be thinking 'why did he have to do a fantastic job?'"

Nevertheless, Anwar will be in the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood tonight. He'll be taking his daughter, the actress Gabrielle Anwar. "She loves all that." Her father will be enjoying it less: "It is agony the Oscars – it goes on for ever." Ian Tucker

SANDY POWELL: 'Scorsese is a shoe man. He always gets in a good shot of the shoes'

She has dressed Leonardo di Caprio as Howard Hughes and Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria, and is now hoping to win her fourth Oscar for costume design for The Tempest

Now on Oscar nomination number nine, Sandy Powell has probably done more to raise the profile of costume design than anyone. This year she's nominated for her work on Julie Taymor's adaptation of The Tempest, and if she wins she'll take home a statuette to join the three others already on her shelf. When she won her third Oscar, for 2009's The Young Victoria, she joked in her acceptance speech: "I already have two of these but I'm feeling greedy." Greedier, even, than Robert de Niro, Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando who each have a paltry two to her three.

Powell, 50, knew she wanted to be a costume designer from the age of 14. She's said: "I've always liked fashion but never wanted to work as a fashion designer. I think designing costume is more interesting as it is not just about the clothes but also the character." She studied theatre design at Central St Martins college but left in 1978 before graduating to work on designing sets and costumes for fringe productions. After seeing two of Derek Jarman's films she rang him up to ask for work. It paid off: in 1985 he hired her to work on his film Caravaggio. Her most fruitful partnership, though, has been with Martin Scorsese. She first worked with him on the 2002 film Gangs of New York, for which she received an Academy Award nomination, and then in 2004 she won her second Oscar for his film The Aviator. (He was so taken with the suits that she dressed Leonardo di Caprio in that he ordered some to be made for himself.) He is also, as she's put it, "a shoe man: he always gets in a good shot of the shoes."

Powell's first Oscar was for the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love, and ever since then she's been known primarily for her period costumes. Perhaps her most impressive designs were those for The Young Victoria in which she dressed Emily Blunt as the young monarch. Blunt's costumes included a coronation robe which, Powell says, "was made completely from scratch with us creating the fabric first." Powell had seen the original in the archive at Kensington Palace but to recreate it was a challenge: "We did this by buying a plain fabric with a metallic thread in it, then dying it to the right shade of gold, then all the intricate embroidery was recreated by printing and hand painting."

Despite her meticulous attention to detail, for which she's rightly renowned, she has said that only 20% of her job is art – the rest being psychology: "You should be of the temperament to deal with all types of people and understand very quickly how to get the best out of your department, get your own way with actors and fulfil your role of helping to create your director's vision."

Getting her own way with even the starriest of actors doesn't seem to be a problem: apparently Scarlett Johansson has said she wouldn't dare talk back to Powell. More recently, she's persuaded Helen Mirren, who plays Prospera in The Tempest, to wear a cloak made of 3,000 pieces of vacuum-formed plastic, painted and sewn together, which, Powell has said, "weighed a ton".

When she won her third Oscar for The Young Victoria she seemed to acknowledge the disproportionate attention that period costume design receives, dedicating her win to "the designers that do the contemporary films and the low-budget ones [who] actually don't get as recognised as they should do." More recently, she told the Wall Street Journal: "Contemporary films are incredibly difficult to do, but it's either the stuff that's most extravagant or experimental, or historical period, that wins the awards."

And she should know. But despite being an Academy Awards veteran, the ceremony still hasn't lost its thrill. Last year she likened it to having children, saying: "It feels just as exciting as it did the first time. The only difference now is that it doesn't terrify me. I still get nervous – everyone gets nervous when you're in that building on the night of the ceremony. The tension in the air is incredible. But I'm not terrified."